The Ringer NFL Show - Top 200 Fantasy Rankings: Our Biggest Takeaways for 2023

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

Fresh off the release of The Ringer’s 2023 Fantasy Football Rankings, the guys break down some of their biggest takeaways after ranking the top 200 fantasy players (2:01). Finally, the guys close with emails (33:12). Check out our 2023 Ringer Fantasy Football Rankings here! Email us! [e-mail] Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up everybody? It's Austin Rivers from the Minnesota Timberwolves. It's a new year and I have a new podcast here at the Ringer, Offguard, hosted by me and my guide, Pasha Higigi. Austin and I go way back and talk so much hoop already that we figure those time to fire up the mics and let you in on all of these conversations. Every week, Pasha and I will hit on the biggest stories happening in the league.

And get Austin's perspective of someone currently hooping in the NBA. Tap into Offguard every Friday on the Ringer NBA show feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. My name is Danny Hyphitz and I am joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Corralbock and our top 200 for 2023 is live at fantasy football.3.com.

Looks magnificent. And you know what? We're not going to change it once through August. These are set and final. We're done. We finished it. We did it. These are the correct rankings. We did it, Joe. Feels good. Seriously, though, please go look at these rankings. I know I plug stuff at the top all the time, but like,

please, fantasyfutball.3Rer.com, they look beautiful. And also, they're in the order, which is crazy. But if you go on your phone, like, there's just not other fantasy rankings that look like this. Like we work really hard on it. Dozens of people work on this, please. Fantasyfewport.30.com. It is awesome. You will be like, oh, yeah, wow, he's right. And that's good for me. If you have thoughts on our rankings, email us at ringer fantasy football at gmail.com. If you want anything you can add, you know, we're going to do a big old update to these

things at the end of July. We have entire features that people just were like, what if you did that? And we're like, that's a good idea. And then we just built it. So please email us at ringer fantasy football at gmail.com. You can also yell at us about the rankings, like that's fine. Whatever you want. Tell us we didn't put Kelsey number one like we said we want. Whatever you want to do, yell at us, it's fine. But you have to go to fantasy football.30.com.

And then in the process of ranking all these guys, we've got our, you know, top 200 plus players there. We just kind of all just have thoughts. There's just kind of things that keep coming up for us. We're like, we've got to talk about this stuff. And we're just going to dive right in. And I think the number one is just that Christian McAfrey is just like the first pick. Like we have him first.

And I am curious, D.K., is it hyperbolic? I feel like just, I put Christian McCaffrey first because I just, I feel like it's the best mix of talent and team. Right. Maybe in my lifetime. Like, it's a top five match of how good this person is and how right the team is for them. Yes. And then I'm also just not even 100% confident in this choice. I think the Elijah Mitchell potentially getting healthy and stealing snaps from him over the long term does worry me a little bit.

But ultimately, this is kind of an issue that we have with every running back in the NFL. at this point, it's just, you know, everybody's in a committee. Everybody's got guys that are pushing for them. Teams are trying to be a little lighter on these guys going forward in terms of volume. So am I fully confident in this? No, but it just makes more sense. It's funny. I still can't really believe that McCaffrey's on the Niners.

It still doesn't really like, hasn't really clicked in my head. It was like when I was, it's such a perfect fit. To me, I was so excited fantasy-wise when it happened to me. It was like when I found out about the movie. once upon a time in Hollywood. I was like, wait, they're making a Quentin Tarantino movie with Leo DiCaprio,

Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie about old Hollywood? I was like, those are all the things that I like. You couldn't have scripted a better thing that I like. And when they were like, oh,

Christian McCaffrey's actually going to go to the Niners and be the starting running back. I was like, that's just all the things that I would want in fantasy football, like put into one. I think I'm much more

on Hyfitz's side here. I think he is the easiest 101 pick like of the last seven years. Wow. Okay. I think the only reason you're not taking him first is because you're out on running backs in general. I can already imagine Bill Simmons coming in this spot in three months and being like, I'm out on running backs. But that's fine.

Like if you want to take Justin Jefferson first, I totally get that. Like, it's not weird at all because, I mean, look, we're also breaking our own rules here by putting McAfee first. We have a rule that says, we have a tattoo on our back that says no Shanahan running backs, no matter what. And now we're going to take a Shanahan running back first. also he has this different. It's different though, because we want to do it this time. Also, I will see McCaffrey has like Petteller tendonitis, which I don't know if that ever really goes away. They just manage it.

And so maybe he's going to get load managed. But regardless, he's still a psycho. He's going to play all the time. So I agree with Craig. He's obviously the number one running back. And it's just the, again, Ian Harditz, who's at Fantasy Life has this amazing stat. McCaffrey has 100 yards or a touchdown in 38 games in a row. If you take up the games that he either got her.

Oh, yes. I love this stat. 38 in a row. 100 yards are a touchdown. He's also, like you said, I mean, he's a psycho about, like, health. Like, if you see, like, this guy, like, breaks records every single week, training-wise. He's always doing some new thing, some, like, zero gravity. Flexibility.

He's just an absolute maniac, and I want him. Yeah. The, it's a good way to put it. It's a maniac. He is, though. I don't know if it gets easier or harder there. I feel like Jefferson, to me, is the easier, too. McCaffrey's the only guy where I'm like, oh, I will take the existential angst

of a running back injury in the first round. After that, honestly, I just want receivers. I want Justin Jefferson or like Jamar Chase or Devante Adams, Cooper Cup, Tyree Kill. Like these are the guys that I want next because, again, last year, we basically, the top 10 receivers, eight of the top 10, we're in the top 10. And I'm like, that just don't screw up your draft in the first round. Is that how you feel, D.K.? Yeah, I mean, like the safety of that position,

just the way that the NFL is trending in general towards more passing, although that might be cyclical and we might have that change over the next year or two. But yeah, I mean, I think there's superstars at the receiver position are so much more reliable, I think, than the running backs at any, you know, for any team, really, other than like three guys. So, yeah, the Justin Jefferson's, the Jamar Chase, you always, they just feel so much more reliable. It's just so much more satisfying to click, click draft with those guys. and you're not like getting that huge pucker factor when you're like, oh God, here we go.

Leonard Fortnet or whoever, you know, obviously in the last couple of years like Leonard Fonet was high volume but really volatile. I don't have that feeling with the receivers at all. And I feel that way too, however it's especially because other than McCaffrey, who I think is kind of an outlier in like the true 101 pick, when you start going to these next running backs,

you know, you're getting into like Echler, Jonathan Taylor, Sequin, Bajon Robinson, Josh Jacobs. I really do feel like after McCaffrey, from picks two to like 16, they all genuinely kind of feel interchangeable to me. I mean, like,

the top of that list, closer to two, you have guys like Echler, Jamar Chase, Jonathan Taylor, Sequin. But then you keep moving down. It's like,

we have Tyree Kill at 10. We have Josh Jacobs, who is like the number three running back in fantasy at 11. We have Derek Henry at 12. Devante Adams at 13. Nick Chubb, who doesn't have Kreme Hunt anymore at 14.

Stefan Diggs, 15, who was like also had a career year last year. Like, to me, you could realistically, just swap out Stefan Diggs for Jemar Chase, and it might be the exact same thing. And that's the difference between the fourth overall pick and the 15th on our rankings. It feels like the first two rounds to me are pretty much just like open season. I totally agree.

And I just keep... Honestly, there's some real tectonic shifts, I think, with this season. We'll get into other positions in a second. But the receiver, there's such a clear top six to me. And there's the top two of Justin Jefferson, Jamar Chase, where there's really nothing bad to say about them. They're young and they're incredible. They're like the Hansel. And then again, you mentioned Tyree Kill,

who literally had the best season of his career. Like, he had, Tyree Kill had over 140 yards six times. And the only, it's like, little baby question marks. It's like, okay,

like, what if two, it gets hurt again and he's catching most of my Schuyler Thompson. That'd be bad. Cooper Cup was literally getting one at every three passes from the Rams.

It was the top four target share of the last decade until he got hurt. But he had like high ankle sprain. Like, that's a little weird, but whatever. He's still Cooper Cup. Devante Adams,

100 catches, 100 yards, led the NFL in touchdown catches. New quarterback. All right, whatever. So he's below dig. And then digs is digs. It's like, I'm just like, what are the odds that those guys play the whole season and disappoint

you? It feels really low. And I think that's where I'm back to. It's like, McCaffrey's the only guy in the first round where I'm like, I can't get this anywhere else. But even the guys like a Josh Jacobs, like a Sequin, Jonathan Taylor. I'm like, they're probably incredible. But I, there is no such.

The upside isn't worth the safety to be of just take a receiver. I don't have the heart for this. I can't deal with the Adam Schaefter. tweet that just sends my entire season spiraling that Jonathan Taylor is eye ankle sprint. Last year in particular too it felt like you could really get running back like you could

just find an RB2 for your lineup in so many places. There's just so many guys that were either filling in or part of a committee or like a past catching specialist or whatever that would like get you a solid eight to 10 points or whatever and you you could get by with that versus you know previous years where

that was not really the case. They're just were fewer of those guys. So to me, it felt like last year there was just, you know, a wider range of running back options. So if you, if you missed out on like the top top guys, there's just like 30 other, like 30 guys that just were going to get you like a really low, low ceiling performance. Yeah. And like, I do think for auction drafts this year, I think the top 20 picks are going to be closer in price than they ever have been. I just feel like Sequin and Derek Henry and Stefan Diggs versus Cooper Cup versus Jamarrow. Chase, I just think all these guys should be within like, I don't know, five to eight bucks

because like, even AJ Brown, who we have ranked 16th. AJ Brown was awesome last year. AJ Brown was like a top six wide receiver in fantasy and Jaylen Hertz got hurt for like three games. Like, I wouldn't even want a first round pick. I would trade down. I'd pull the Belichick, trade down. Get value.

If you have the six pick and trade down to 14, like if you could do that, like that's actually a really good way to put it, Craig. Because you're like, there's 16 guys and yeah. how big really is the gap from Justin Jefferson to A.J. Brown. Obviously, Jefferson's better. But like, are you that much more confident? Jonathan Taylor with Anthony Richardson is going to be extremely more productive than Nick Chub? I'm not.

I think you nailed it too because once, after that 16, there's what I can only describe is just a bunch of sexy players. There's like a dozen guys really, hell yeah. We talked about this last year. It actually aged poorly last year because I went on a whole rant about why you should draft Keenan Allen and then he got hurt. But my point remains that like, non-sophobic. sexy players is the key to fantasy football.

Resisting the sexiness is the key to fantasy football. It's like, you have to get bonkks. It's like a thirst. Yeah. You're like when you're in your draft this year and it's a snake or it's an auction and Bejohn Robinson comes up, it's like Raiders or the Lost Rock. It's like, close your eyes, Marion. Go look at it, Marion.

Because Bejohn Robinson just is Nick Chubb. Just think of him as Nick Chub or think of him as Jonathan Taylor. He's going to go for more because he's sexy and he's new. and everybody thinks he's super cool, but he's probably going to go for $10 too high. And I feel the same way about somebody like Garrett Wilson now with Aaron Rogers, who I admit I am obsessed with.

I think Garrett Wilson is awesome. And I think he's going to be awesome with Aaron Rogers, but it's probably going to overinflate his value. A guy like Travis E.N., for example. He's sexy. He's only played for one year because he was hurt the first year. He's with Trevor Lawrence. He's new.

But then there's a guy like Joe Mixon just sitting there, still is just like the three-down guy in Cincinnati, who was the RB9 last year, and nobody gives a shit. shit, we have ETN ranked 10 spots higher. Mixing is a separate situation because we'll see what happens is a chance he gets suspended. But overall, I agree where it's like, Garrett Wilson in particular is a great example where it's like,

he's so good when you watch him, he's cool, everything you just said. Also, Aaron Rogers demanded they signed, what, three different receivers. Randall God today. But to the Indiana Jones thing, Garrett Wilson's the like really, really cool looking holy grail that you're like, this must be it. And you're like, actually that really plain boring one, that's the holy grail. That's the one. It's like, just take Chris Alave, who nobody.

seems to think is sexy, but has Derek Carr and, like, was great last year. What did we call these guys last year? I feel like we had a whole show about the just like the Bunk. These are the, we were the horny police. Yeah. I'm talking about the boring ones. What do we call the boring guys? Oh, the all boring team.

We're like Don Draper at work and we're trying to resist all these hot women that are coming into our lives and it's like, just go home to your wife, Don, all right? Just draft Elbe and Cook. For what? You don't need Breeze Hall. He's coming off an ACL tear. Why take Garrett Wilson when you could just wait 12 picks and get him Cooper who will just be better.

Oh, he's a perfect example. Perfect example. Yeah. He's just not cool, though. We should have the all yawn team. The go home to your wife team. Make good decisions. Oh my God.

But here's the thing. I think that my biggest revelation we're doing these rankings this year, I think that that's a really good way to put it. It's McCaffrey, unless you're really scarred, McCaffrey Jefferson top two. And then like three to 16 is like, yeah, cool. Sure. Like there's not that big of a difference, if we're being honest. And then there's all those really cool sexy players.

And then these two kind of go hand in hand. But I want to start. Honestly, the elite quarterbacks, I have and we all have ranked higher than I think we have ever ranked them doing this exercise. And I think that this year, the tectonic shift in fantasy will be after like a decade of weight on quarterback, early quarterbacks are back. We have quarterbacks ranked higher than we've ever had them. ever before. We have Jalen Hertz. He's our top quarterback. We've him 25th. We have Patrick Mahomes, 29th. He's our second quarterback,

Josh Allen 30th. Now again, let's be honest. That's our order. But the reality is those are the top three guys. Hertz, Allen, Mahomes, you can put them whatever you order you want. But the point is that they we have for basically a decade, it's been smart to wait to draft quarterback. And there were basically two reasons. It was

hard to predict who the top five quarterbacks would be. And there wasn't that big of a difference between the fifth quarterback and the 10th anyway. So you might as well wait. because you might as well get a top five quarterback at the price of a tenth. What changed is the gap between the top five guys and everyone else is now way bigger, and it's way easier to identify who the top five guys will be. Because it's the top five guys, spoiler,

it's going to be Patrick Mahomes and a bunch of guys who run. And probably Joe Burrow, too. And we're not going to get some, it's not like Jared Goff will magically just run for 11 touchdowns this year. We know who they're going to be. And the gap is massive. So it looks weak. I mean, doesn't it just look weird to see?

Jalen Hertz with the 25 next to him. It just looks strange. But the reality is Jalen Hertz was second in rushing touchdowns last year. And they did an outlawed the push. And he was second in just goal line attempts. Like Josh Allen had the same. If you look at rushing attempts inside the five, Josh Allen had the same as Josh Jacobs or Nick Chubb.

It's their two players in one. The times are changing. That's all with the quarterback situation. It's like having one of the elite quarterbacks can actually not win you're a league, but it really pushes you up there. Like, I'd be wondering how many people last year had Jalen Hertz on their team and were like in middling our last place. I actually can answer that. He was carrying teams.

The other way around is ESPN, Tristan Cockroft does a review of like ESPN leagues. And if you had Patrick Mahomes last year, you literally, he doubled your odds of winning your championship. He was the number two most, even though he was obviously drafted very high. And Jalen Hertz was double, even though he ended up missing a lot of the end of the season. Yeah. It is an interesting just paradigm shift, I guess, in fantasy because like you said,

before the late round fantasy quarterback was always the smart thing to do because there's just such a opportunity cost of taking a quarterback early. You're not gaining that much of an advantage and then therefore you're losing out on one of the top skill players at like receiver or running back.

Now it's like if you don't have an elite quarterback, you're kind of fucked, you know? Yeah. And so you either have to get, you have to kind of go early and get a guy like Kurtz or Allen or Mahomes or you have to really gamble and go late with a guy like last year it was like Justin Fields or Trey Lance. Trey Lance obviously didn't work out for you.

If you took Trey Lance and were really banking on him going off, then you probably had a tough year. Justin Fields, meanwhile, like maybe won some people their leagues. At least like second half the year, he was absolutely going nuclear. And so- Second most rushing yards for a quarterback in NFL history for Justin Fields last year. So finding that guy a couple years ago was Lamar. you know, last year, a couple of years after that or whatever, is Jalen Hertz now is Fields.

And I think this year it's going to be Anthony Richardson. And I suspect by the time we get to like real drafts in August that Richardson's going to be like the QB8 or something like that. Because people are going to be talking about. We have them 16 right now. Yeah. Like I think that's way too low, honestly. Austin says along good stat that more than half of Justin Phil's points last year from rushing.

And I think that the, it's so basic. But it's true. It's like, oh, rushing yard is worth almost three times more than a passing yard. Like, that's it. Yeah. And so it's just like when you combine that with, again, Josh Allen ran for more of first downs than Devin's single, Terry did last year. Like the bill's running back at fewer first downs than the quarterback. As long as that's kind of where we're at with the yards and the goal line attempts and quarterbacks, as D.K said, like you're, it's kind of like the people who get hurts and Josh Allen and those runners or Mahomes because he's that good every year.

It's like they just added an extra roster spot. It's the same thing we was talking about with Kelsey. So if someone starts their draft with Kelsey in the first round and then gets Jalen Hertz in like the fourth, they kind of have two extra players. And if you had Jalen Hertz and Kelsey last year, you probably made your championship. So we're in a really weird era.

Daniel Jones was the QB8 and he passed for 15 touchdowns. Like it's just, yeah, it's a whole new thing. Now, some people like me might say, maybe we should change the rules, but. We joke that the bears are off at five fits. We joke that the bears were like Navy. And yet their quarterback, is sixth on our list.

Like, it's, it's so odd. It's even weird seeing him there among Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson, like all really good quarterbacks. And then Justin Fields, who straight up just might not be good, is the sixth quarterback at our rankings. I have a question, just philosophically,

because Hyphitz is so, like, just, I mean, he's going to die on this hill forever. Alternatively, if, like, quarterbacks didn't rush, like, why would that make the game better, Hyfitz? Don't you like the strategy?

He just wants it to be equal. He wants it to be equal. Well, I think that the way... There's a lot of different ways to fix it. I guess my point is that it... We're already doing this. It's the second episode of the movie of the show. It's one of the humor because it's very like snidly sticking these like comments in while we're trying to like talk about this.

It's just there's you can play the meta of like, well, a rushing yard is worth three times more than a passing yard. So I'm like, okay, but like, is that what we want? Is that the... Because you know why it's, it goes back to my thing. It's like fantasy footballs, the only thing. you can actually enact change in your life fairly easily. You want to change a local town council. You want to get a road change.

Like, it's actually hard to do things. You just have to convince like six friends. And you're like, oh, you can change the rule. So I'm like, is this what we want? Is the best version of this game the same thing that was 60 years ago, even everything about the sport has changed? That's all. It's like, are we sure rushing guard should be worth three times more than a passing guard?

I don't know anymore. They came up with that rule in like 1964. I think it's harder to get seven of your friends to change the rule in a week than it is to build a new road in a city. I really do. That's a good thing. Look, man, you never try to build a road. Neither am I.

I will say my defense of the quarterback rushing thing is that when you have a quarterback that can run, it's really fucking hard on a real-life defense, too. You know what I mean? And so when you get these guys that can do both, they're absolute game changers. Like they are, they're Patrick Wilms. They are, you know, Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hertz, they're the league's most dangerous players, full stop. And I think like the idea of penalizing these running quarterbacks because, you know,

of an old rule or whatever is stupid. No, I know. It's just weird to me that a third and five and you complete for five yards a pass, but versus running for the five yards is worth like a third. That just doesn't make sense to me. And when I'm watching it, it perverts the game when I'm watching Sunday's live. And I'm like, God, Mahomes, no, don't throw it. My Holmes, run it.

Oh, you threw it. I'm like, you know what I mean? It's just like, that's kind of dumb. That's all. It's more demoralizing when they run for it. So it's three times as demoralizing to the defense. That's an anti-Lytic right there. It's harder.

It's harder, you know? Not everybody can run like that. We're dangerous. You should be rewarded. So I think that a parallel factor in my opinion, at least, and why I think it was easier for me to remove the quarterbacks up this year is the, I don't know what to call them. I guess the upper middle class of receivers is the least inspiring I can remember in quite

some time. The upper middle class, you said? Give some examples. I don't know what to call on that. But basically, we all agree that the top. like 18 or so received. What's their salary for upper middle? Are they making like one 150k a year? With inflation these days?

I don't know. I guess I'm fine. I'll name. Yeah. So if the elites are Jefferson, Chase, Cooper Cup, Hill, Devante Diggs, cool. And then like there's Aegee Brown, Cedley Lamb, Jalen Waddle, Amon Rae, St. Brown, Garrett Wilson, Chris Olive, Dek-McCaf, Devante Smith, T. Higgins, Amarie Cooper. Like, okay, cool. Those guys are all exciting.

This is the top 16. Like, if you have one of those guys, if you have two of those guys, then you're freaking good to go. Then it's kind of a blood bath. You're right. There's Debo Samuel who's like, I mean, he had fewer yards from scrimmage last year than Latavius Murray. And who's the quarterback for the Niners? DeAndre Hopkins, I love, but also like, is Colt McCoy the quarterback? Is he going to play there? We don't know.

Then it's like, Drake London. Love the number one receiver, but like they threw the ball 39% of the time last year. Tyler Locke's great. Terry McLorne's quarterback Sam Howell. Chris Godwin's quarterback's Baker Mayfield. Keenan Allen missed more time last year than Brian Robinson, even than Brian Robbins got shot. Did you more plays for the Bears now? Jeez.

And like, I mean, the Bears actually ran the ball the most in the last. league last year. Michael Pittman's quarterback's Anthony Richardson, who we love, but like, is he really going to be able to, you know what I mean? Like you go on and not, Calvin really has played five games since 2020. Mike Williams always heard, Mike Evans was one of the most frustrating players in football last year. Markies Brown missed like three months. Like all these guys are like have upside, but also it's so easy to envision me drafting them and immediately regretting it. So this is good. We're, we're like formulating what our early draft strategy is. So right now we're thinking you go early on wide receivers and early on elite quarterback. You start out with,

you go back to back, you grab a Jamar Chase and a Monroh St. Brown. And then round three, you're grabbing Jalen Hertz or Allen or Mahomes. And then we're bargain shopping for running backs. That's the move, it looks like. I hope I got to tell you, running back's kind of a mess. I don't know. I kind of actually am into a decent amount of these guys. So the running back said like that approximate area. I'll just read off a few here. Like J.K. Dobbins, Miles Sanders, Damien Pierce, James Connor, Rashad White, K. K. Makers, Alvin, Alvin, Kamara. I actually kind of like those too. Like, that is what you'd probably call in prior years the dead zone.

But with the way that's the running back. But it could work for us. It doesn't work for these people. But yeah. I mean, look, J.K. Dobbins, this is the year after, the year after the return from injury. This is this year. Yeah. Right.

Damien Pierce was awesome last year. Miles Sanders, like, has what we think is a three-down role with Bryce Young. James Connor, although the most boring player in fantasy history, the Cardinals have yet to do anything with his competition. I'm pretty sure he's just going to get 270 touches again. And then Alvin Camara, I know he likely might get suspended, but even if he comes back, like,

kind of like Alvin Camer this year with Derek Carr, Cam Acres, you know, there's not a lot of competition for him. Like, these are all ugly dudes that could probably touch the ball 20 times again. Even if you go further down that list, Isaiah Pacheco, David Montgomery, Dandre Swift, Khalil Herbert, Shot Penny, who's probably going to lead the NFL in rushing. Javante Williams, who maybe in the second half,

is feeling a little bit better, gets on the field. James Cook, kind of a sneaky guy in a good offense, AJ Dylan, Brian Robinson, Damien Harris. I can talk myself into all these guys. I agree. I think that that is where my early heart is because part of me is like, at the end of the day, let's just say you have the fifth pick. You can basically, there's a world where you can get,

I mean, if you come out with like, let's say you have the sixth pick or whatever, if you want to just take Travis Kelsey and then you come back around, you could get like A.J. Brown. and then let's say you stack in with Jalen Hertz. And then you come back around and you might get, you know, T. Higgins. Yeah. And so you've got Hertz, Kelsey. Yeah, let's say Amari Cooper and A.J. Brown.

And it's like, all right, cool. You have a long time. You don't need a quarterback. You don't need a tight end. And it's like, all right, cool. Go find like bargain shop at running back. And I'm like, I think that that feels safe, which is probably why it's a terrible idea. And we'll look back on all this with like hilarity when it all goes wrong.

And we finally buy in on Kelsey the year that he collapses. But you know what I mean? where it's, it just, you're buying such high floors that, um, I think that's kind of a big theme for me this year is there are not that many guys where I'm like certain of a certain degree of production. So I want those guys. There's kind of a scary group of running back. It's like the group right above the dead zone. Like maybe these are guys you would take it like round three. And there's a lot of question marks around these guys. It's like Ken Walker obviously now it's like we have Charbonnet there in

Seattle. Breeze Hall. It's coming off an ACL mix in possible. suspension has been kind of in decline. Dalvin Cook is just like weirdly hovering around like being the RB15 now, despite like them not really making any changes in Minnesota. He's like still younger than you think. He's like 27, but he's kind of been declining. He's banged up a lot.

You have Najee Harris, who has been a disappointment since his rookie year. Jamir Gibbs is a rookie. And then Aaron Jones without Aaron Rogers. It's like that whole group, that's like nine guys. I don't feel good about any of them. And they're going to cost you like 40 bucks in an auction. I don't know. I don't mind those guys.

guys as much. But I think that that's another big theme is like Leo DiCaprio, which is, again, coming up, talked about how he never wears the same hat. Shout out, Andrew Gododaro, who made a giant Leo DiCaprio actually bracket on the ringer. He did a March Madness bracket of all the hats that Leo decaprios wore. But we're also the LitoCaprio

once you're 26, 27 time for a new one. And I think that that's actually like a big question this year is which 27-year-olds are we just out on versus which are we sticking. We have to decarripping. We should do an entire episode around. Yeah. Decaprio and around. Yeah, oh, boy.

27, like, say one's 26, but he's 23 at heart. Wait, can we, we haven't talked once about Derek Henry. We have to. Just please, can we spend five minutes on Derek Henry? What are we doing with Derek Henry? So we have Derek Henry 12th overall, and he's our seventh running back. For the eighth straight, yeah, I'm not drafting him. How much, like, how cheap would Derek Henry have to be for you to draft him?

What if he was $23? Yeah, I would do it. Okay. I think if we're talking anything under 30, I'm like, okay, fine, I'll do it. Is this the ultimate all time? I'm not touching this guy with a 10-foot pole, but he's probably still going to have 1300 yards? Yes.

This offense could be terrible. The Titans won out. The Titans basically, I mean, I believe that they were trying to trade. The reality is that Derek Henry is still making like basically $10 million. And, you know, it's probably the last year from in Tennessee. It's probably the last year for Randan Hill in Tennessee. They're probably on the precipice of a rebuild. like Will Evans takes over next year.

And like they're not going to build this. They know like the new GM came in from San Francisco. They're aware they're not building this offense around. I mean, Derek Henry's going to be like 30 next year. So they're not building it around him. But again, speaking of psychos, like Derek Henry still wants all the touches. And he doesn't, I don't think he cares about any of this. So we're going to be like, oh, well, you know, better out a year too early than a year too late.

We say for the fourth year in a row. And he's probably going to have 1600 yards and then just never play football again. But I just can't be left holding the bag after missing all the good days. Like I can't. pay. You know what I mean? Like, I can't fund this. It's like a bailout, I feel like. They did draft Peter Skoransky, so maybe he's the key to this whole thing.

I know this doesn't make any sense, but I wish your 20s were like 15 years long because then I would feel so differently about Derek Kennedy. You know? Like, if they were five years after 29 and it was still considered in your 20s, and he's the exact same guy who has played the same amount of snaps, I would feel way better about it.

Are you talking about Derek Henry or yourself? He's projecting. He's projecting. Craig's upset Derek Kennedy's 29 because Craig's upset that he's 28. Yeah,

Craig's like getting scared of turning 30. Give me a break. That's true. That is true. But I'm telling you, the 30 cliff, even though it's like

not even real half the time, all these modern medicine and athlete health is completely different now. Like, you know, Cooper Cup's 30 and he's like probably going to be incredible this year. I'd still,

for some specifically, it's Derek Henry's sheer size and just overall freight that just has freaked me out since he's been like 25. Overall freight. Yeah. I don't know.

I just don't want it. I don't. That'll be a great theme for the DeCaprio pod is just Craig and I being really uncomfortable with the fact that we're almost 30. And DK maligning us for that. DK being like, you guys suck. Just fuck off. Yeah.

That's my main takeaway from some of these rankings is I looking at some of these middle receivers. It honestly reminds me that line from Superbad. It's like, man, you ever just seen Michael Thomas on his own? not for me. Not for me. It's not for me. Austin, going back one second, Austin just dropped this in the chat.

The only running backs in the top 20 that were older than 27 years old last year were Derek Henry, is 28, and Jerich McKinnon, who randomly caught like eight touchdowns in like a six-game stretch or whatever it was.

But see, that's almost my point here. Is that an argument for or against Derek Henry? I can't tell. It's against. It's against. But he's the outlier. He's the freak of nature. It's like saying,

you know, LeBron James is the only player to average over 28 points at the age of 38 or older. It's like, okay, but doesn't that mean I should just draft LeBron again

next year? Because he's the only guy who can do this still? Well, I think that it reminds me of my dad in 2010 being like, you know, this Apple stock, I think I missed the boat. And then in 2020,

he's like, man, this Apple stock, I think I missed the boat. And then meanwhile, now they're a bank and in two years they're going to have a car. And in 2030, he's going to be like, I think I missed the

short it. Every year we're like, you know, we miss the glory days. And then we just, you know, we keep, we just,

it's the office. We need someone to tap us on the shoulder and be like, you're still in the glory days. I'm out. I'm out. Derek Henry is the S&P 500. It keeps going up.

Same with Kelsey. We're going to finally get in on Kelsey this year and he's going to like have a seasoning injury. Warren Buffett's favorite two players are Travis Kelsey and Derek Henry. Oh. What would Warren Buffett do? Just have, he just wins every year to his Kelsey.

He's like to, Derek Henry pays high dividends. Let's buy it. We're in. I saw the other day that Warren Buffett said he invested in Coca-Cola in part

because it had no taste memory that Coke, like if you eat a lot of chocolate, you get sick of chocolate. Like it collects in your mouth and your slot and basically your mouth is like, all right,

enough of that. And Coca-Cola, they've designed you to the point where it's completely and utterly forgettable. So even though when you drink it, people are addicted to the taste, but then there's no buildup

so you never get sick of it. And that is apparently what convinced Warren Buffett to invest in this forever. And that's why he's such a huge share of shareholder. They do that with a lot of chips. I think I read or I was listening to some podcasts about, you know, food science and how messed up it is.

And they said the exact same thing. They talked about like if you ate an orange slice, the flavor of orange is like in your mouth for what feels like 20 minutes. It's like all over your fingers. It's like you just sprayed yourself with orange for a film. Like a film. If you have a Cheeto, the flavor's gone in like 15 seconds because they want you to want more. Yeah, they really perfected that. I think Teddus Tony did the same thing to you too.

Ha! That's right. He's in and out. They score, they also have, like, for snack food, they score them on like a, I forget what it's called, but basically a skill of, like, taste, shape. Because texture is such a big part of food. And you know what, like a shape that scored best? Like, 99 at 100 for, like, it was like a cheese puff and like a chito. Yeah. It's like the perfect shape for what a human, like, apparently your lizard bread wants to. Cheetos are very satisfying.

I really like Cheetos. I think original Cheetos is like maybe the greatest thing on the earth. You can't stop eating Cheetos. It's like a scientific thing. Do you know how we're like a little worried about AI taking over for us? Do you think when God created Humane, like, you know, everything and then saw that we created Cheetos, he was like, oh shit. I couldn't have thought of that. He's like, wow, they're good.

Damn. All right. We're coming to you every week for the entire summer. So that's sick. We're going to talk next week. We're going to go through some of our biggest questions for the season of which we have many. So, but yeah, fantasyf football. 3.com.

Please visit our rankings. They're really, they're really cool. Please, please check them out. Do it on your phone. We made them for your phone. They're perfect. And they're right, which again, how about that? Prove us wrong.

Email us at Ringer Fantasy Football. Don't talk to us later. Emails at Ringer Fantasy Football at Gmail.com. If you have things we want to hit on this pod over the summer, we definitely have like the most room for weird stuff. So emails, whatever. Emails, questions about players. Emails questions about our ranks. Things you want to see.

Emails, whatever. Email time. Let's do it. Email. Email. Email. It's from Daniel, which is appropriate. Daniel.

Hello, Danny. He wrote about the Seahawks running backs, Ken Charbonnet and Ken Walker. And he said, listening to recent podcasts, I was struck by how Danny Kelly and everyone described the Charbonne. The flashy, dancey, home run hitting Seahs running back is... Wait, isn't it Zach Charbonnet? It's not Ken Charbonnet. Oh, did I write... Oh, I just wrote it backward.

Oh, sorry. I just read whatever something that's all prompter. But... Actually, wait, no, sorry, I did that right. You'll see in, like, one second, why I did that? The Fl-Kin... Gee, I just did it again. What is wrong with it?

Okay. We're keeping all of this. The point is they should switch names. Ken Walker is like the blue collar got Michigan State, blue collar name. It's like that guy should be the grinder. He's the flashy home run hitting dancer. And then Zach Charbonnet from UCLA is to like grind it out three yards in a cloud of dust. It's like they should switch names.

Charbon A should be the home run hitter. And Ken Walker from Michigan State should be the three yards and cloud of dust guy. We should switch their names, their lives. And as Daniel says, maybe there's social security numbers. This is a great take. Kenneth Walker, Steeltown. It should be Zach Budweiser and then Kenneth Charbonnet. You can have a nice little blend there.

It's actually good. Speaking of funny names, by the way, I got a message. I'm in an international dynasty league, which is six of the teams are from our American managers. Six of the teams are from. International man of dynasty. Yeah. Well, it's the Rider Cup for fantasy football. Essentially, yes.

Six of the managers are from other countries. Power is a fantasy football. Anyway, one of the teams is some guys from France. And they were upset at our LaPorta discussion the other day. Apparently, LaPorta is the door in Italian, not French, you fucking idiots. And I'm saying that to me. So anyways, just wanted to point that out. La Porta is Italian for the door, not French.

In retrospect, that makes a lot of sense. We got an email from, I'm going to leave this person's name out, but they'll know who they are. Leave this person's name out. So in the last episode, if you know, let's do it, or actually guess this is two episodes with Solak, we revealed on our final draft show of the year, we figured out that Ben Solac has no sense of smell, or virtually none. And so someone emailed in, who will shower name, nameless says, one summer in college

when I worked at Target as an early morning stocker, I unloaded the delivery truck one day, and we were stocking the shelves in the pet food section. when one of my co-workers dropped a case of canned cat food in the corner on a platform cart and one of the cans broke open revealing the food had gone rancid and was infested with maggots. Oh my God. The guy who dropped the can immediately started gagging and another co-worker pulled an Irish goodbye. We started trying to clear it up, but my coworker literally couldn't stand the smell for more than two minutes. And during the whole process, I sensed a disturbance in my nose.

but to the amazement of my coworkers, I legitimately couldn't smell anything. And after cleaning up the mess in the store floor, I took the platform cart back to the room, and without thinking, I put it next to a big fan in the back, proceed to go upwind of the fan, and 30 seconds later, the backroom staff come running from downwind of the fan

trying to identify the source of what the hell the smell is coming from. And I explained it, took it out to the loading dock, and I think that they burned it to get rid of the smell. So I know Solex's not in the pot anymore, but please let him and others know there are others in the world who are olfactory challenged. Do you guys think that it's a blessing or a curse to not have a strong sense of smell?

Both? It's a curse. It's a curse. Really? I think the bad smells are worth the good ones. I agree. You also only have five ways to interact with the world. That's fair.

You know, the smell of bacon, chocolate chip cookies, you know? Yeah, that's a good smell. Better to smell than lost. Dude, every summer day. Every time he walked by like a pizza place just like, oh my God, that place smells so fucking good. Barbecue? I just smell after it rains.

We're getting romantic here. Do you guys, in your relationships, do you guys have one person who has a sense of smell and vice versa? Like, Skippy can't smell. And so anytime I'm always like, hey, do you smell smoke? She's like, I don't smell anything. It's your job to smell stuff. I'm like, I don't want to be responsible for smelling everything.

So can you get, but does that mean you get away with farting in bed? Yes. what is this this is the most ignorant thing I have asked in a while when you can't see your blind when you can't hear your deaf what is it called when you can't smell

is there a name I don't know I don't know Austin said Smith that's not correct there's no way that's correct I don't know honestly I'd never heard of it

until COVID happened I don't actually know I guess it's like Tobias it's like there's dozens of us I think it's pretty common Anasmia That's not He's making this up

Hyposmia Is it reduced ability To detect odors And anasmia is the Complete inability To detect odors So Ben perhaps has Hyposmia

Yeah it's not Yeah Like Skippy She can smell Sort of But just not Not well I like Smeth

We gotta change that Imagine being a dog They can smell Apparently like 10,000 times stronger than us Or something like that Something ridiculous

They can smell everything. That would just be overwhelming. I wouldn't want to live that world. And I think Hyvitz's mind too last year when he told us that dogs tired themselves out not by running but by smelling. Yeah.

And that's why you should let your dog sniff as many fireplaces or fireplaces, fire hydrants and bushes and sidewalks and trees and stuff because it'll tire them out. Yeah. So like this is repeating what I said earlier, but for everyone who didn't hear if you have a new dog, a puppy or whatever and you really want to get the energy out of that

dog, just throw like a handful of kibble out in your backyard and they'll spend the next like 45 minutes trying to find all the kibbles sniffing around, just tires them out. You can run a dog. You can have like go play fetch for five fucking hours. Don't never get tired. Like dogs have insane stamina. But their olfactory system, if it goes into overdrive, that's like what really tires

them out like once. They want to go to sleep after that. So yeah, it's brilliant. Every now and then Dika kind of dishes out life changing facts. Like when he was like, this Lord of the, this music from the Hobbit puts my kid to sleep. and then we got like 20 emails from dads. We were like, thank you. It's like the only greatest thing.

It's the greatest thing I've ever freaking like. Shout that out. I didn't discover it. What's it called again? Misty Mountains on the Hobbit soundtrack. It's incredible. Honestly, we'll give advice for the whole year. But if you're a dad with or a mom,

anyone listening with a young child, that's actually the best advice you'll get all year. Yeah. It hasn't worked with 100% of the people that I've told it to. But it's pretty strong. Like I would say it's like a 75% hit rate. If your baby is crying and you need to soothe the baby, put on this song, it's like a deep gutteral, like, humming with a bunch of dwarves. Sounds amazing.

And the baby just is like, what? And he or she will, like, turn their attention to this song. It's like insane. It worked with Calvin, like, every time. All right, we got an email from Matt. Matt. This is about we were talking about eating the same thing every day. Craig said he couldn't.

Also, someone said, Craig, my friend Matt said, how are you going to do a bulking pod if you can't eat the same thing every day. Well, you can diversify, right? Or it's like you can transform the chicken. I'm saying like the exact same thing every day is weird. All right. Well, Matt says for 25 years, I had the exact same thing for breakfast every day. Two dry toasted bagels dipped in my morning coffee.

Dry? Oh, my gosh. Tried toasted bagels. Well, I guess he's dipping them in the coffee. Two slices or two pole bagels? No, he says two dried toasted bagels. Dipped in coffee? He says I love

I freaking love bagels I sure hope so I mean I can't talk Look I've eaten I've eaten fucking Probably a million Césidias in my life So I get it

But also like Don't bagels Like if you dip a bagel in any liquid Doesn't it just like disintegrate No no no I'm curious What is in Matt says I found bagels in Japan

Costa Rica and in Italy Literally everywhere Because it got to the point I didn't want to break my streak I've never heard of Dipping a bagel coffee before. Is that something that people do? I've never heard of that either.

I mean, we'll love this probably. I just don't get it to me. A bread soaked in a liquid makes no sense to me. You don't like dipping bread in like vinegar? What? Like I'll dip some like bread and facacia red in vinegar.

Oil and balsamic. Yeah, but that's like a little bit. You're not like dunking. You're not submerging it. Well, D.K. loves a dinner roll, which honestly was almost like the end of our professional relationship at the Super Bowl. Yeah. Oh my God. I don't need to get into that.

I do love bread. We'll save that for fantasy therapy. The airing of grievances? Oh my God. Oh, my God. I had to mediate between the two of them for like 40 minutes at a dinner in Phoenix. Craig, this is privileged information. You're not allowed to talk about it on a podcast.

They don't. I haven't said anything. Craig is literally our therapist. Basically. I also want to shout out everyone to email this about the pumpkin pie and milk Kiper stuff, which if you didn't listen to our last draft show, just milk Kiper reads pumpkin pie every day.

And we just honestly was the most astounding thing that I've ever discovered my entire life. I still want Mil Kuiper on this show to just not talk about the draft at all. Just talk about pumpkin pie. I just want all weird eating habits. If you have weird eating habits, emails. Ring our fantasy football at gmail.com.

Not humans though, Craig. We're not going there. Well, no cannibals. If it's, if it's altruistic. Altruistic cannibalism. All right. Thank you, D.K., thank you, Craig. Thank you, Austin for all the help behind the episode.

Thank you, Kai for producing this episode. And then, uh, Kai probably wants to thank Los Angeles Lakers for beating the Warriors in game one, which has, um, probably torn this podcast asunder, quite honestly. Thank you, Lord. Lord. Why did it, why did it, why did it? I, it's not over. I don't understand this.

It's like, yes, they won game one. It has not, it'll tear the podcast apart if they sweep them, you know. Get out the brooms, Craig. Let's go. Yeah. That was such a kitchen sink game for the fucking Lakers. The amount of Oscars that they should be awarded for flopping. Darwin Ham was on the court trying to block Jordan Poole's last three.

I fell asleep because I kind of love that this generational matchup of LeBron versus the Warriors again is on at 10 o'clock Eastern. Just, that's great. How do the Warriors shoot six free throws? Great question. 29 to 6. Here's a good staff for you though. The Steph, Clay, and Poole, all three of them, each made six threes.

The Lakers as a team made six threes. They won't by five points. That's because how many did they shoot? Like 18? I think they shot several. I don't know. I don't know the number of them. They shoot a lot of threes.

They just don't make them. So it's like, we've got to see what happens. There was a lot of shenanigans going on in that game. I'm just going to leave it at that. Thank you, Jimi Hendrix. We're going to be in Sweden together in like a month. I want to know what you guys will put on this series. Well, Kyle and I were texting about it.

We were debating. We were going to do like money, but, you know, we thought maybe we could have it where. And we wanted you two to help. If the Lakers win or the Warriors win, the other person has to like read a statement on the pod that the other person writes. You've got to change their Twitter avatar.

We have time. So if anybody has any thoughts. That's fun. So we did that a lot on the NFL show. I should have Stephen and Ben Solac. And it would be funny because I think the only thing Craig cares about on Twitter is the Warriors. That's right.

That would be so sweet to just see some Lakers, some Lakers propaganda from Craig Horlebeck. That'd be great. It's just a mashup of Lakers and then Yukon just together and like a Twitter episode. Craig is a, he's a fantasy football expert and a movie expert who hosts three watchables

and the only thing he tweets about are the fucking warriors. Didn't you mention the Warriors score when we were the best man at your brother's wedding and you're like, so the score of the Warriors is? Well, yeah, that was the whole thing. It was like game four of the Celtics series. was my brother's wedding, my brother, as well as all his friends and my family, we're all big Bay Area guys, we're all big diehard warrior fans.

And so there was like this ongoing joke about like, are people going to be checking the score during dinner? Are they not? And so I led the best man speech by saying, I said like, first I'm going to start with what's on everybody's mind. And I was like, the warriors are up for. And everybody like clapped. It was like, yeah. And that was, that's iconic game. We all watched it on our phones while we were dancing on the dance floor. Lakers and six. Your boys are flopping all over the place. Darwin Ham's the sixth man on the court That's just

Competitiveness That's just him competing out there He put his hand up to block him To affect his sight On the court Great move Veteran veteran move What are we doing

NBA? Adam Silver get it together Classic Jason kid running into Coach with the water I trust the dubs The Kings are better than the Warriors I mean sorry the kings are better than the Lakers Shit

Freudian slip Oh, boy. I truly believe that kings are better than the Lakers. Craig gets so defensive around the Warriors. It's like his child. You know why I think that is? It's because every other part of my fandom in life, like movies, television, fantasy football,

it's all become a part of my job. And the Warriors is the only thing that has nothing to do with work. So I can still just, like, purely enjoy it. All right. Dickie, did you name a band? Yeah, I said Jimmy Hendricks. I snuck it in there.

We just skipped over Jimmy Hendricks. Shout out Jimmy Hendricks. All right. Goodbye, everyone. one.